Seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe constructions: a numerical case study from Yazd,Iran

Past earthquakes have demonstrated that historical vaulted adobe buildings are highly vulnerable to seismic actions. Hence, it is crucial for such building typologies to be evaluated in terms of seismic capacity. To this end, this article deals with the seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe houses from the city of Yazd, Iran as one of the seismically active areas of the world and possessing a very rich adobe heritage. Thus, and based on a detailed geometrical survey, a representative sample of adobe houses from Yazd was studied using a simplified in-plane analysis based on three geometric indexes. Concerning the out-of-plane behavior, a deeper assessment was conducted by performing a numerical study, where the main influential parameters on the seismic behavior of vaulted adobe buildings were considered. The numerical analyses were carried out by adopting the limit analysis theory implemented in the Block2D software. The results obtained indicate the safe in-plane behavior of most of the houses and the safe out-of-plane response of the sample under gravitational loads. However, the sample out-of-plane safety under earthquake-induced loads seems to be a matter of concern.     

朝鲜古地图所见之清代中朝边界诸问题初探

朝鲜古地图中保存了清代中朝边界的诸多重要信息。通过对多种朝鲜古地图的解读,考察了其绘制方法与特点,重点分析了穆克登碑、图们江源、"间岛"及鸭绿江下游岛屿等边界地区在地图上的表现方式与变化轨迹。可以看出,朝鲜古地图在绘制方法受到了中国传统舆图的深刻影响,在内容上反映了绘制者对本国历史、地理状况的认知,也体现了其领土观念与"北拓传统"。     

Dimensions of remapping: Heinrich Schiffers and his mental map of Africa

ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Athenäum publishing house in Germany planned a revised and extended edition of Heinrich Schiffers’ (1901–1982) successful book Wilder Erdteil Afrika (English translation: The Quest for Africa). The bestselling author had published several monographs about Africa since the 1930s, and authored and edited numerous works after World War II. Nearly all of these works, whose substantial print runs are testament to their popularity, are characterized by an engaging combination of text, images, and cartographic material, creating narratives and mental maps about Africa, its history, and the colonial past. In his later writings, he stressed the importance of “relearning” with regard to Africa and struggled to remap the imaginative geography of Africa. In this paper, I examine the characteristics of Schiffers’ imaginative geography and the change in his writings and maps. I explore whether his concept of “relearning” was an epistemological decolonization or if there were any continuities found in his imaginative geography. In order to grasp the specifics of his thinking, his geography will be briefly compared with that of his contemporary, Frankfurt zoo director Bernhard Grzimek.     

Maps and the assessment of parish rates in nineteenth‐century England and Wales

Abstract

This paper reviews the role of maps in the assessment of rates levied for the relief of poverty in nineteenth‐century England and Wales and examines the relationships between tithe maps and parochial assessment maps both in general terms and with specific reference to Poor Law unions in the county of Kent. An appendix lists 207 parochial assessment maps made in connection with the levy of poor rates which are extant in the public archives and libraries of England and Wales. Other ‘lost’ examples of this genre awaiting discovery in parish churches and vestries will undoubtedly add to this small but important constituent of the corpus of English and Welsh cadastral maps.     

Guidelines for On-Site Assessment of Historic Timber Structures

In the scope of European Cooperation in Science and Technology–Wood Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage (COST IE0601–WoodCultHer) (available at http://www.woodculther.org) it was agreed to produce Guidelines for the Assessment of Historic Timber Structures, covering the principles and possible approaches for the safety assessment of old timber structures of historical relevance that could be used as the basis for possible European Standards, as discussed with CEN/TC346 (Conservation of Cultural Heritage).

This approach was targeted at all those concerned with the conservation of heritage buildings. These guidelines should also help decision-making regarding the need for immediate safety measures. The aim is to guarantee that inspection and assessment measures provide the necessary data for historical analysis, structural safety assessment, and planning of intervention works, while having minimal impact on the building fabric (the original materials, structural systems, and techniques).This article provides information on the criteria to be used in the assessment of load-bearing timber structures in heritage buildings. It covers the preliminary assessment (desk survey, preliminary visual survey, measured survey, structural analysis, and preliminary report), as well as the detailed survey of timbers (with a special emphasis on visual strength grading on site) and carpentry joints. The subsequent diagnostic report and the detailed design of repairs are outside its scope.     

清代博爱李自奇卖地契李仲买地契的史料价值

李自奇是李牟的父亲。李仲号大亮,是李岩的二哥。康熙元年李自奇卖地契,十二年李仲买地契,与康熙五十五年《李氏家谱》中有关记述可相互佐证,既为研究清初豫北土地买卖提供了具体资料,也为研究明末李自成军中的李牟、李大亮提供了佐证资料。     

青海历史文化的产生及演变

准确的文化定位,对于一个地区文化历史渊源的追溯、文化内涵的发掘具有重要的意义。作者通过对西羌文化在青海大地上的发展历程的论述,认为西羌文化更能反映青海文化的产生以及在相当长历史时期内发展演变的情况。     

Archaeology of Northeast Thailand in Relation to the Pre-Khmer and Khmer Historical Records

An earlier study of how the archaeological data from the Khmer period in northeast Thailand confirm and augment the information from historical texts is expanded into an examination of the early historic pre-Khmer and the post-Khmer periods. For these, both the historical and the archaeological data are more limited and problematic. The archaeological record confirms generally the changes associated with the transition from prehistory to history but raises questions about the sources of external influence and the types of political and economic organization which characterized northeast Thailand societies. More robust archaeological data and more precise chronological control will be necessary to test historical models of pre-Angkorian and post-Angkorian political development.     

Mapping coexistence in Italy: Reshaping the cartographic feelings of the plural nation

Rarely considered from the perspective of ordinary citizens as opposed to institutional actors, national maps have been primarily deconstructed as abstract tools of power that express nationalist agendas. This paper offers an alternative examination of the map as a performative tool of national pluralism. In tune with the most recent conceptualizations of everyday forms of nationhood, I explore multiple creative auto-cartographies of Italy as experiential images for investigating the coexistence of several senses of nationhood and cultural diversity. To this end, I combine an inductive visual content analysis of nearly three hundred remappings of Italy, uploaded online by readers of a popular national newspaper, La Repubblica, with a visual semiotic reading of six samples. Here, the playful idea of remapping the nation becomes a catalyst to produce or resist a sense of belonging to the nation, while eliciting a wider spectrum of feelings with regard to internal and external perceived meaningful others. This paper concludes that the different ways in which ordinary people map the nation have to be taken seriously, as they show evidence that these readers absorb and decode, but also resist or challenge, different mainstream discourses regarding the idea of nationality, coexistence, and cultural diversity.